The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life

Listen to The Top if you want to hear from the worlds TOP entrepreneurs on how much they sold last month, how they are selling it, and what they are selling - 7 days a week in 20 minute interviews!
The Top is FOR YOU IF you are:
A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4)
STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7)
An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1)
The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14).
Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries.
Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that's like an audio version of Pat Flynn's monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at NathanLatka.com/TheTop

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Manuel Opitz: He is currently the founder of Mecuris. Before founding the company as the CEO, he worked as a medical IP broker in innovation management and as a technology scout in China. He graduated in Industrial Engineering and he has taken a keen interest in optimizing healthcare process chains by digitalization and 3D printing.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Thinking Fast and Slow

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —PodioandAcuity Scheduling

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Don’t try to do everything yourself”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:37 – Nathan introduces Manuel to the show

02:14 –Mecurisis in B2B and medical technology

02:30 – Mecuris provides patient specific prostheticsusing3D printing

02:58 – Manueldiscussesthe picture on their website

03:19 – Mecuriscan bereimbursed by the insurance companies

03:38 – Mecuris gets paid as the service providerformedical supplystores

03:51 – Mecuris usesSLS—which is more costly butlasts

04:25 – The smallertheprosthetics, the cheaper it is

04:50 – Manuel shares the pricing

05:25 – The price for Sophie’s prosthetics

06:15 – Insurance companies have their own prices

06:55 – Average number of prosthetics that havebeen 3D printedin2016

07:28 –Mecurisonly had prototypes in 2016

07:45 – Mecuris had 2 seed investors in November

08:39 – Mecuris raised under a million

08:55 – Mecuris had a pre-seed round

09:37 – The 6 founders put in 5-digit numbers per person and received a pre-seed government round

10:12 – Manuel shares how the 6 founders talked about the equity

11:26 – The founders who are operational are the software lead and product designer

11:52 – There are a total of 11 people in the office

12:07 – Mecuris was launched in May, 2016

12:52 – Manuel wants to enter the international market after Series A

13:09 – Talks with big companies are in the works

13:40 – Mecuris can do prosthetics in just 10 minutes

14:04 – ManueldiscussesSophie’s prosthetics and what would be her option would be if therewasno Mecuris

15:15 –Mecuriscan do simulation workwiththeir prosthetics

17:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Aim high—if you believe that you can enter the international market then do it.

Sharing equity requires a good system, defining how you can benefit from one another.

Francisco Larrain who has been an entrepreneur for most of his life. He was born and raised in Chile and is the co-founder and CEO of Sudo. He founded a company called Zappedy – a payment technology company that was backed by Eric Schmidt and acquired by Groupon. More recently, he led a project engineering team of a hundred plus people for Groupon’s local business. Now, he’s working on enabling high quality work for corporations and their teams. The co-founder and head of product, Amit, is also joining Francisco in this podcast.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –High Output Management(Francisco)

What CEO do you follow? – N/A (Amit)

Favorite online tool? —SplunkandGithub(Francisco)

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No (Francisco)

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Francisco would tell himself that all these people that you look up to are much more human than you think and he’dwould love to have more confidence.

Eric Berman: Since graduating from UCST, he’s been a serial entrepreneur and business operator. He grew his first company to 400K and just missed out on going public. He has been a consultant for many other businesses and is now the CEO and founder of Brandetize, a full service, performance-based, marketing agency that partners with thought leaders such as Brian Tracy, Jack Canfield and many others.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –How to Win Friends and Influence Others

What CEO do you follow? –Gary Vaynerchuk

Favorite online tool? —Spark Hire

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7 and a half

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Continue to have an open mind, network as many people as you can and…follow your passions and be humble”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:00 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show

02:33 – TheCollegeClub.comwasEric’s first company

02:51 – It grew significantly

03:40 – The stock market crashed just before they become public in 2000

04:25 – They were burning $2M monthly with over 400 employees

05:46 – After the crash, Eric did some consulting

07:00 – They don’t teach life skills in the educational system

07:18 – Eric approached Brian Tracy when Brian was struggling

08:00 – It was 2001, when Eric started working with Brian at no cost

08:16 – Eric shares the difference of Gary Vaynerchuk and Brian Tracy

09:08 – After working with Brian for more than 10 years, gurus are asking Eric if he can work for them

09:20 – Eric had a talk with Brian about him working with other gurus

10:00 – The brands that are going after Brandetize

10:40 – 2015 total revenue is close to $4M and 2016 is close to $5M

10:55 – 28 employees

11:16 – Brandetize doesn’t have a MRR

12:30 – Eric predicts that Brendon Burchard will be the next Tony Robbins

12:56 – Brian Tracy brings the most revenue to Brandetize

13:50 – Eric shares their offer to the brands

16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Have an open mind, be humble, and follow your passions.

Even if you have a significant fall—this does not stop you from coming back.

Wayne Silbermann. He has founded a number of startups from South Africa including one of the first world’s music discovery services which was originally founded by Mark Shuttleworth. His most recent venture, Sortd, is a new email platform that’s on a path to fundamentally changing the way people communicate and manage work. Sortd has ranked as the number 1 app for Gmail on Product Hunt.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Tipping Point

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —WorkFlowy

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Wayne would tell himself that there’s plenty of opportunities out there and you can pick and choose what you’re passionate about

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:35 – Nathan introduces Wayne to the show

02:20 – Sortd transforms the Gmail interface into a more organized system to manage lists—similar to Trello for Gmail

02:50 – Wayne discovered that many people use the GmailInbox as a to-do list

Daniel Araujo. He’s the CEO at Attentive.US – a competitive intelligence platform that gives real-time information to teams that use SalesForce, Hubspot, Pipedrive or Full Contact. He’s the next Googler, loves data visualization and all things technology.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Peak

What CEO do you follow? –Jeff Bezos

Favorite online tool? —HubSpot

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Roughly

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Danielwould tellhimself to learn as fast as he can

Eric Bouck. He’s the CEO and founder of Propeller, a CRM that lets you sell from gmail. Prior to Propeller, Eric was the co-founder and CEO of Zigzag Software which was eventually sold to Samsung. He also spent some time working as a director for Samsung. He also worked as a Group Product Manager at Dell EMC and spent 4 years with this company.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Inspired

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —Webflow

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Marry the right person”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:26 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show

02:05 – Propeller is the CRM that creates daily tools that salespeople can use to set their meetings, do their email and phone calls, share presentations and documents, and research etc.

02:31 – Propeller is a SaaS business and they have monthly and annual subscriptions

02:50 – Average revenue per customer monthly

02:54 –$50 per month

03:15 – How does Propeller win on a very crowded market?

03:24 – There’s a lot of companies who try to make their own niche

03:42 – Propeller has a unique mix of deep integration with Gmail combined with the ability to do multiplestep campaign

04:45 – Propeller is an all-in-one CRM – you won’t be needing another product

05:10 – Propeller was launched September 1st

05:15 – Growth is 21% month over month

05:22 – A little over 50 customers at the moment

05:26 – Propeller is bootstrapped

05:39 – Eric got decent money from the exit

06:23 – No revenue churn at the moment

07:00 – Team size,they are also remote

07:36 – Eric is not open to acquisition talks at the moment

08:00 – The leading companies in the CRM space are Salesforce and Dynamics

Manuel Silva. He’s a partner at Santander InnoVenture. Prior to that, he was the founding member of BBVA Ventures which focused on lending, new platforms, financial inclusion, and private banking. He’s worked across Latin America and Europe and holds a BA in Business Administration from CUNEF, a MSc in Political Science, and a MPhil in Development Economics.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A

What CEO do you follow? –Rob Frohwein

Favorite online tool? —Crunchbase

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “There’s so much to do in this world”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Manuel to the show

02:25 – Manuel is involved in all investmentsatSantander

03:10 – Manuel is separate from the Santander group

03:31 – Manuel facilitates the relationship across the banks

03:48 – The banks refer to the Santander’s franchises all over the world

04:24 – Manuel shares how they worked withKabbage

05:01 – “It’s a successful investment, it’s a successful partnership”

05:20 – Kabbage is the perfect example of how Santander wants to work

05:30 – The fund size for innoventureatSantander

06:45 – Manuel shares how Santander plays in the venture capital world

06:48 – Santander does equity investment only

08:05 – Santander works out the opportunities for the CEO and the company

08:55 – The companies in Santander’s portfolio is not complete because there are still companies unannounced

10:00 – Manuel shares how they work in the round and in the FinTech space

10:03 – FinTech space has a level of maturity and density in entrepreneurship

11:00 – CompaniesthatSantander have invested in are data driven

12:13– Santander wants banks to partner with startupsso that these companies can access thereachthese banks have

14:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

FinTech has the maturity to deal with the problems that come up in the industry—this sets them apart.

Santander exists to bring together a partnership between banks and startups.

Glen Coates. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Handshake. It focuses on putting the right product on every shelf in every store. He goes between Sydney, San Diego and New York City.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

What CEO do you follow? –Dave Yarnold

Favorite online tool? —Boomerang for Gmail

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Glen wished he knew how intense running this companywasgoing to be and to spend a lot more time making music and going surfing.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:37 – Nathan introduces Glen to the show

02:15 – Handshake is about getting the right productonevery shelf, in the world

Josh Muccio: He’s the host of The Pitch Podcast and he recently launched Season 2 on January 11th. Before The Pitch Podcast, he was the founder of iHeart Repair, which he sold in 2014. He is a father of 2, soon to be 3. Josh is 29 and he loves the tech world. He’s in Florida and loves skiing and takes 2 ski trips every winter.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Slight Edge

What CEO do you follow? –Nicholas Quah

Favorite online tool? —SlackandGoogle Drive

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “To create more stuffand just put it out there”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:38 – Nathan introduces Josh to the show

02:35 – The Pitch Podcast is similar to the TV show SharkTank

02:53 – Season 2 is where investments happen on air

03:05 – Josh shares why Season 1 of The Pitch Podcastwaschallenging

03:40 – Sheel is Josh’s co-host

04:09 – JoshdiscussesiHeart Repair

05:20 – iHeart Repair was sold in 2014

05:25 –Revenuewasaround $750K annually

05:59 – Josh just didn’t see his future with iHeart Repair

06:25 – Josh had a broker whohelped him withthe exit

06:43 –MTechRepairbought iHeart Repair

07:12 – Josh did the Wordpress site for iHeart Repair

07:35 – Josh installedWoocommercein iHeart Repair’s site

08:30 – Josh shares what happened after the exit

08:50 – Josh shares how he met Sheel

09:10 – Josh had a dream that hewasgoing to have a podcast

09:30 – Josh shares how he metSpencer Handlyof Blab

09:52 – The start of the daily hunt

10:45 – Josh shares how Sheel approached him

11:25 – The advertisers in the podcastarethe main revenue stream

12:00 – Nathan asks Josh for his feedbackregardingpromoting his product

12:49 – Josh plans to stay in their business model

12:54 – Average revenueforSeason 1 of The Pitch Podcast

13:11 – Season 2 pre-sold revenue

13:30 – There are 2 advertisers per show

14:15 – 250K total downloads for Season 1

14:42 – The idea of Season 2

15:13 – The amount Josh spent on his Facebook ad trial

15:31 – Press is the most successful growth channel for The Pitch Podcast

Gal Har-Zvi: He’s a passionate entrepreneur who lives and breathes B2B sales, marketing, and everything in between. He’s one of the founders of Valueshine Ventures, the technology holdings company and a successful online marketer for various software categories and verticals. He’s currently the CEO and founder of the company called Unomy.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Pitch Anything

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —Calendly,ZoomUS,Yesware,SalesLoft,Boomerang

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Just do whatever you love and are passionate about and everything will be good”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Gal to the show

02:14 – Unomy provides sales intelligence solutions

02:27 – Unomy makes money by selling annual subscriptions

02:40 – Unomy was launched in 2014

02:53 – Raised capital after 6 months

03:00 – Launched the current version focused on enterprise sales a year ago

03:25 – First year revenue

04:05 – Unomy currently changed their business model because the first onewasnotsuccessful

04:21 – 2015 revenue

04:36 – 2016 revenue goal

05:03 – Unomy currently has mid-market businesses, but gradually switching to larger accounts

05:36 – Average customer pay annually

05:49 – Average number of current customers

05:58 – Unomy has currently raised capital

06:08 – Unomy did a seed round and a few convertible notes

06:18–Unomy is going to raise a Series A

06:39 – Gal shares why they are raising capital

06:56 – Unomy’s competitors are raising capital as well

07:21 – Unomy will probably raise $5-6M

07:40 – Unomy’s valuation

08:33 – In any round,a founder should expect to lose anywhere between 25-35% of their company

09:17 – Gal and Nathan discuss what an average deal is

09:45 – There are a lot of VCs in Israel

10:20 – Unomy has 3 branches

10:48 – Team size is 24

10:56 – Gross annual churn

11:35 – Customer’s LTV

12:02 – CAC

13:20 – Number of companies in Unomy’s database

13:58 – Gal shares what makes them better than their competitors

15:00 – Unomy has a variety of categories

15:30 – Unomywasfounded to helpsales companies,not investors

16:06 – Unomy uses more sources than others

17:19 – Unomy has a guarantee and if you get a bounce email, you can get your money back

17:38 – Unomy doesreal-time verification

19:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

In any round, a founder should expect to lose anywhere between 25-35% of their company.

A company should focus on why it was founded in the first place.

Do what you love and are passionate about and the rest will take care of itself.

Eric Boggs: He’s the CEO at RevBoss – a sales prospecting SaaS company. RevBoss helps B2B sales teams grow pipelines and win more customers. Prior to RevBoss, he was the founder and CEO at Argyle Social and was a one-man sales team at Bronto Software. Eric is in North Carolina with his wife and 3 small children.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Hard Things About Hard Things

What CEO do you follow? –MattWilliamson

Favorite online tool?–Stripe

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?–No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “To not worry so much about the long term—thatthings just have a way of workingthemselves out”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:35 – Nathan introduces Eric to the show

02:10 – Eric shares what happened to Argyle

02:42 – Argyle raised $1.5M

03:52 – Argyle’s buyers

05:32 – Eric was only 22 when joined he Bronto

05:39 – Eric was a one-man sales team for 2 and half years

06:32 – Eric went to business school after Bronto

07:05 – Bronto is now anOracle company

07:12 – RevBoss is a SaaS company that helps B2B seller relations find more prospects and win more customers

07:45 – In between the Argyle winddown and RevBoss, Eric was a consultant for a year

08:20 – RevBoss’ competitors

09:20 – RevBoss started as a services company and launched in September 2016

09:47 – Building a servicesbusinessis easy, growing it ishard and turning it into a SaaS business is much harder

In Episode #543, Nathan interviews Andrei Breaz. He’s the founder and CEO of Bant.io which is a B2B leads company. Before that, he was the founder of Keptify, which was acquired by Well Investments. He also worked as the CTO of Harty Hanks and is highly experienced in the B2B sales space.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Think and Grow Rich

What CEO do you follow? –Anthony RobbinsandElon Musk

Favorite online tool? —Trello

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Andrei wished he would have caught the entrepreneurial bug sooner

Conor Lee, founder and CEO of HipLead. The company helps leading B2B companies scale their outbound sales with high quality lead generation outbound campaigns. Before founding HipLead, Conor founded several other companies including TellFi which was in the Y Combinator, Winter 2011 batch. Prior to that, he worked as a lobbyist in statewide political campaigns.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Hard Thing About Hard Things

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool?–Zapier

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?–No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Conor wished he had spent more time in tech than in politics

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:30 – Nathan introduces Conor to the show

02:07 – Conor shares what happened to TellFi

02:58 – Conor had a co-founder who wanted to keep it going

03:19 – Conor shares how the exit happened

04:10 –HipLeadhelps companies scale their outbound sales

04:35 – HipLead’s pricing

04:55 – Current number of customers is 30

05:18 – HipLead was launched in 2013

05:30 – Conor is the solo founder, but he had a co-founder for awhile

06:25 – Conor has the majority of the shares of the company

07:35 – Conor and Nathan discuss cap tables

08:00 – Conor hireda lawyer for his legaldocuments

08:17 – Use the startup attorneys

08:31 – HipLead is bootstrapped

08:50 – HipLead’s loan

09:20 – Conor shares whyhe got the loan

10:00 – Conor shares how the loan works

11:30 – The type of loan isonly for specific companies

12:00 – The company namethat provides the loan isLighter Capitaland it is based in Seattle

12:21 – Annual customer churn:less than 15%

12:58 – CAC

13:09 – Customer’s LTV

14:15 – First year revenue

15:40 – 2015 revenue: $900,000

15:50 – Current ARR

15:59 – Conor is also looking into raising capital

16:10 – Team sizeof 16

16:29 – Team location is in San Francisco and other remote locations

18:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

We need to be more open about exits—there are times where you just have to pull the plug.

If you need funds and do not want to share equity, try a bank loan.

Make sure your legal documents are in order, especially in the case of a split from your co-founder.

Bobby Martin, the author of The Hockey Stick Principles: The Four Key Stages to Entrepreneurial Success. He believes too many startup founders pivot way too early, quit too early, and expect rapid take off. Through his experience of starting and selling First Research, he's learned firsthand the challenges and solutions at each stage of entrepreneurial growth. Bobby’s currently the chairman and co-founder of Vertical IQ—a leading provider of sales research insight for banks. He's an angel investor and an active board member with several innovative startups including Local Eyesight, Boardroom Insiders, My Life Site, SageWorks and etailinsights. While he's a national speaker, he's still a hometown guy who focuses most of his investments in North Carolina where he's lived and worked.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Rework

What CEO do you follow? –Brian Hamilton

Favorite online tool? —Salesforce

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Be patient for a long journey

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Bobby to the show

02:53 – First Research was launched in 1999

03:19 – Bobby had the exit before the bubble

03:31 – First Research provided profiles to sales and marketing professionals

03:51 – First Research is a SaaS business

04:11 – It took 7-8 years for Bobby to build First Research

04:42 – Bobby made the book because he loved the process

05:09 – Bobby loved the journey

05:26 – Bobby had a publisher and agent for the book

06:00 – Bobby’s agent negotiated the deal with the publisher

06:28 – Bobby’s book was just recently published

06:41 – The average number of copies sold

07:30 – Bobby shares what he thinks made the book sell

08:57 – Bobby is an angel investor

09:40 –Vertical IQprovides profile revenue to bankers

10:19 – The revenue model of Vertical IQ is similar to SaaS

10:30 – Vertical IQ gets paid upfront annually

10:43 – Average number of customers

10:55 – “We don’t charge per seat, we charge according to the number of bankers”

11:20 – Vertical IQ pre-sells to banks

12:05 – ACV is between $15-20K annually

12:28 – Average ARR

12:40 – Gross customer churn

13:25 – Average CAC

13:34 – Vertical IQ is a sales driven company

14:04 – Vertical IQ has a solid profit margin

14:55 – LTV

15:53 – Team size

16:40 – First year revenue

16:58 – 2015 total revenue

17:15 – Vertical IQ is self-funded

19:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Write a book—not because it’s convenient—write because you have something to share to the world.

Requesting an upfront annual payment can have clear advantages over monthly payments.

Be patient and do not get discouraged—the entrepreneurial journey takes time.

Spencer Farber. He is the CEO and founder of Cliently and he’s been in the industry for 10+ years working across many spaces. He discovered one thing—the constant pain for companies is to define creative ways to generate leads and THAT is what he’s trying to solve with Cliently.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Marc Benioff’sbooks

What CEO do you follow? –Mikita Mikado

Favorite online tool? —Trello

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – People are goingto throwcurveballs and youjustneed to understand how to deal with them

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Spencer to the show

02:12 – Cliently helps a client engage with prospects

02:23 – A lead is only valuable if you’re able to do something with it

02:33 – Cliently is a SaaS model

02:40 – Cliently’s subscription plans starts at $99 to $599 a month

02:50 – Average RPU

03:18 – There are clients who pay annually

03:45 – They currently have 70-80 customers

04:02 – Cliently is bootstrapped with $30K and friends and family with $75K

04:22 – Cliently was launched in February 2016

05:00 – Spencer shares about a client in Australia and how they are using Cliently

05:20 – The client is BigReviewTV

05:28 – Cliently creates custom campaigns for them

06:10 – “We are not trying to be a CRM but we are trying to put the pieces together that are essentially going to help engagement”

Darren Pierce. He’s the founder and CEO of eTailInsights. Prior to launching the business, he has spent many years working with B2B companies specializing in leadership, strategic development, client relationships, and maximizing revenue growth. Darren was the Director of Sales for First Research which was acquired by Hoover. Darren helped Bronto Software accelerate their revenue market share to become the leading email service provider in the ecommerce industry. He’s a graduate of The Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University with 2 BSBAs in Management and Marketing.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Hockey Stick Principles

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —Buffer

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Darren wished that his 20-year old self could have been more patient

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:50 – Nathan introduces Darren to the show

02:35 – Darren didn’t want to leave Bronto Software, but he came up with the eTailInsights’ idea and couldn’t let it pass

02:53 – Darren joined Bronto, in 2008, to help sell their email marketing and make offers to online retailers

03:25 – One of the early problems in Brontowashow to find the companies/retailers

03:47 – eTailInsights is a database that indexed thee commercecompanies

04:03–eTailInsights is a SaaS business

04:10 – Average MRR/ARR

04:43 – The pay is manual upfront

04:48 – eTailInsights was launched in 2011

04:51 – Total 2015 revenue

05:15 – 2016 goal

05:50 – Average MRR

06:18 – Average churn is adjusted

06:50 – CAC

07:29 - eTailInsights’average pay per click

07:48 – LTV

08:25 – eTailInsights has been tracking hundreds of thousands of retailer globally

08:36 – eTailInsights will start indexing next year

08:58 – Number of current companies is 3000

09:09 – The three biggest competitors of eTailInsights

10:08 – Exit is not Darren’s priority at the moment

10:16 – Darren’s dream number is $100M

11:18 – Darren wants to knowhow far his business cango

11:30 – eTailInsights is completely bootstrapped and they have $100K in it

12:06 – Current head count

12:20 – Average compensation

12:36 – eTailInsights’ location

12:52 – eTailInsights sourced their own data and they built their own tech

14:38 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

When you become predictable, you lose SO much leverage.

If the idea of a business strikes you, go with that passion and just do it.

James and Larry of Nexd.io. James is the founder and the Chief Stratgey Officer of Next.io and has previously worked with IBM, Socialware, SailPoint Techologies. He has studied at Berkeley and now builds softwares that help people everyday. Larry is the President and CEO of Nexd and is highly experienced in leadership and operations.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Peopleware (James)

What CEO do you follow? –Jeff Miller (Larry)

Favorite online tool? — Clearbit (James)

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes (Larry)

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – James wished he built a network. Larry would tell himself that the most important thing is execution.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces James and Larry to the show

02:10 – Larry just joined Nexd and he’s the new CEO

02:26 – Larry helps James build a business around the idea

02:34 – Larry’s background is multiple CEO

03:35 – James shares why he brought Larry in

03:59 – Nexd was founded 14 months ago

05:23 – Nexd’s space is analytics

05:45 – Nexd analyzes which emails are effective

05:55 – Nexd is currently on pre-revenue

06:00 – Nexd raised a million dollars on a seed round

06:10 – It is a convertible note

06:12 – Nexd did 2 convertible notes

07:10 – Larry discusses what he thinks about CEOs and founders not being on good terms in a company

07:20 – Larry has been an advisor to VCs

07:30 – Larry shares his advice to entrepreneurs

07:56 – Founders and CEOs should agree on who is going to drive the steering wheel

08:43 – Larry shares how he and James would represent the company in a sample article with TechCrunch

09:15 – Larry shares how they would resolve a possible disagreement in a seed round

10:17 – It was James’ own decision to get a CEO

10:48 – On the technical side, there is another co-founder

11:10 – “What Nexd is doing is going to be a game changer”

11:32 – Nexd targets sales manager and sales reps

12:58 – James and his co founder’s background is enterprise integration problems

13:20 – “We’re trying to be a system of engagement for multiples systems of work”

13:43 – Target for Series A is $6-7M

14:08 – A minimal viable product is needed to step forward—a pilot that has been tested

15:50 – Nexd is not interested on a quick exit and they are going to be the next great company

17:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Choose someone who can do something you’re not good at and who you respect.

Founders and CEOs should agree on who’s going to drive the steering wheel – if issues come up, own your mistakes and deal with it.

You need a minimal viable product with validation from potential customers to move forward with your business.

Justin McGill. He’s an entrepreneur and owned a startup in 2008 when he started a digital agency. After he scaled that out, he launched LeadFuze – a B2B lead generation platform. He’s also the co-host of Zero to Scale Podcast which gives us a behind the scenes look at growing a startup with 200K per month in MRR.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Ultimate Sales Machine

What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — ZenPayroll which is now Gustoandbench.co

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Justin would’ve told himself that entrepreneurshipwas a path in life he could take

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:50 – Nathan introduces Justin to the show

02:15 –LeadFuzeis a software platform

02:21 –LeadFuzeallows toyou to search forcontact information and automate the outreach to ideal and prospective customers—turning them into possible sales opportunities

02:35 –LeadFuzeis a subscription-based company

02:55 – Average MRR is $175

03:08 – Earlystage companies are usingLeadFuze

03:25 – Average number of customers

03:45 –LeadFuzestarted off completely bootstrapped and had a small raise of $150K

Mark Godley. He has held leadership positions at technology companies of all different sizes from pre-revenue to publicly traded. He’s best known for driving revenue and outpacing industry growth while rejecting herd mentality. Outside of work, Mark finds time daily to read, work-out, and cook—all the while, being an engaged father, spouse, and citizen.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Devil in the White City

What CEO do you follow? –Henry SchuckandYonatan Stern

Favorite online tool? —Flipboard,Stitcher,GaggleAMPandLead Forensics

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? –“Living below your means gives you tons of options. Think aboutthelife you want at age 50 and work backwards. We’re running a marathon not a sprint, and it takes planning, sacrifice and resilience and then, don’t define success and happiness by your paycheck”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Mark to the show

02:25 –HG Datais in a competitive and intelligent space

02:35 –HG Databuild data sets, used by sales and marketing teams, to do precision targeting at scale

03:05 – The founder foundedHG Datain 2012 after an exit

03:43 – Mark is the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) atHG Data

04:02 – Mark handles all the market phasing for the company

04:31 – WhenHG Datawas founded it served the enterprise space

04:49 – Last year is when they started to go down market

04:58 – Number of enterprise clients is 15-20 with 6-figure ARR

05:15 –HG Datahad traditional customers, as well, that totaled 50

05:58 –HG Datatransitioned from a data company to a product company

06:12 – Total ASP

06:50 –HG Datawants to increase the customer base, but lower the RPU

07:56 –HG Datacreated a use-space specific databases

08:19 –HG Datatries to keep the balance of enterprise and down market pricing

08:34 – 50% of the revenue is from directclientsand 50% is from the partners

09:22 – Mark shares what he is worried about in regards to their target

10:09 – Mark shares how their partners use their data

10:55 – Average pay per user annually

12:05 – There are 10-50 OEMs in the customer base

12:37 – Average number of customers

13:00 – Mark only follows ARR and not MRR

13:27 – Mark shares that they are focused on building the new space—they are currently spending and losing money by design, but hoping for apositivecash flow

14:00 – Gross annual customer churn is less than 10%

14:30 – “We’ve had one 6-figure churn in the last 4 years”

14:40 – CAC

15:23 – “We’re looking for a more high-velocity sales model”

16:13 – The company is based in Santa Barbara, where they have 80 employees

16:42 – Connect with Mark throughTwitterandLinkedIn

18:40 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

“We’re running a marathon, not a sprint, and it takes planning, sacrifice, and resilience.”

Dominik Vacikar. He is currently an Associate at Hummingbird VC, but was previously the co-founder of Spaceship and some other startups, including Growth at Nestpick. Listen as Dominik gives us an inside look at the workings of Spaceship and why he was chosen by Hummingbird for a very specific task.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Zero to One

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? —Stripe

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Dominik wishes he wasn’t so hard on himself, so long as he was progressing

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:35 – Nathan introduces Dominik to the show

02:00 – Spaceship started as a side project when Dominik had their lead generation tool in social media

Darian Shirazi. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Radius. He was an early employee at Facebook and worked on the” Sell Your Item” Team at eBay. He’s founded, invested, and advised many successful technology companies. Prior to starting Radius, Darian studied Computer Science and Philosophy at UC Berkeley. He’s also a prominent keen speaker at Top of Technology Innovation.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Essays of Warren Buffet

What CEO do you follow? –Marc Benioff

Favorite online tool? —Yesware

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “How much harder building the business is than you originally thought and how once you get to scale how amazing it feels.”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Darian to the show

02:15 – Darian shares about his time with Facebook

02:30 – Darian’s favorite project on Facebook wasFacelift

02:45 – Darian shares what he thinks of Mark Zuckerberg

03:30 – Darian can’t think of a time when Mark was at odds with another team member

03:58 – Radius is about growing pipelines for B2B marketers

04:08 – The customers are typically enterprise and mid-market businesses

04:15 – Radius fixes data

04:30 – Radius’ services

04:48 – The whole foundation of the product starts with the Radius business graph

05:17 – Darian shares how they help the client

05:40 – Darian shares how Radius is different with CB Insights

05:50 – Radius’ data is powered by their customers which allows them to access their CRMs

06:20 – The activity data allows Radius to improve their data

06:50 – Radius doesn’t rely on publicly available data

07:30 – Radius was founded in 2011 and launched in 2013

08:00 – Average number of customers

08:30 – It is not really a seat model

09:10 – Radiushas ausedcased expansion

09:41 – Team size is currently 150 people

10:00 – Radius has currently raised $100M

10:25 – Radius still has a lot of net capital left

10:42 – Radius’ retentionforenterprise customers is around 93%

10:50 – Gross monthly customer churn

11:24 – Darian shares what drives their revenue

11:48 – Radius’s implementation day is only 18 days so customers see the value quickly

12:11 – Radius’ pricing

12:23 – ACV

13:00 – First year revenue

13:25 – Darian has 2 co-founders

14:07 – Radius requires a team

14:28 – Darian hired people from enterprise companies

15:00 – Darian shares Radius’s CAC to LTV ratio

15:36 – Radius’s sales cycle

15:52 – “Customer trust is our number one value”

16:50 – It is difficult to measure CAC to LTV when enterprise companies rely on big events for marketing

17:53 – Radius’s growth rate

19:14 – Radius’ marketing budget

19:29 – The amount Radius spends on Dreamforce

20:27 – Dreamforce is an incredible way to grow a pipe

20:40 – Is Radius going to be the next Benioff’s acquisition?

21:48 – Darian shares how Microsoft has been an incredible partner for Radius

22:36 – The last funding

23:05 – DariandiscussesRadius’ future

23:40 – Follow Darian atTwitterandemailhim

25:35 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

It takes a great team to create a great product.

Take what you’ve learned from your last employer, be grateful for it, and leave graciously.

Acquisition requires planning, an exchange of ideas, and thorough researching.

Tim Saumet. He is the CTO of the company called Tilkee – a SaaS solution software for business proposals, follow ups, and sales process tracking. It is a super hot space. Before that, he was involved with OXFOC Technologies as the CEO. He is also a Manager of General Services in another company and a Project Manager at Travel Due.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –100 Conseils Pratiques Pour Couler sa Boite

What CEO do you follow? –Bruno Bonnell and Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — Zapier

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— “Yes” for Kate and “No” for Tim

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Tim would have focused more on personal development

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:37 – Nathan introduces Tim to the show

02:13 – Kate is developing the European market

02:30 – Tim used to be a salesman and it was difficult for him

03:03 – Tilkee is a simple SaaS software to analyze a prospect’s behavior

03:30 – Tilkee works with any kind of document

03:50 – Tilkee started as a side project 3 and a half years ago

05:00 – First year revenue was $20K

05:15 – Tilkee is currently serving 800 customers

05:41 – Average customer pay per month

06:20 – December 2015 MRR

07:30 – Tim started with small companies, then progressed to enterprise companies

08:05 – Tim pivoted the product and customer base

08:12 – Tim raised, 2 years ago, a million and a half dollars

08:34 – Tim is thinking of raising more next year

09:08 – Tim won’t go to a typical Series A round

09:35 – Employees have a part of the equity

10:15 – Tim wants a raise, but would still want more than 50% of the company

10:37 – Typical valuation in Europe

11:15 – Gross monthly customer churn

12:00 – Kate shares how they find their enterprise deals

13:22 – Tilkee is not doing an e-signature but a u-sign from the European market

14:14 – A customer lifetime value

14:45 – Average CAC

15:45 – Tilkee has an advertisement in one of the biggest French radio stations

16:20 – Current team size is 20 and 15 from them are salespeople

16:42 – Tim shares the stack they have built Tilkee on

17:15 – Kate is currently using Pipedrive to drive Sales

18:35 – Find Tilkee on Twitter and Facebook

20:19 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

You CAN solve your own problems—you just need to do the work of finding solutions.

Raising capital is always an option to take that next step forward for your business.